Gala Concert -- Gennady Selyutsky


In The Night (Jerome Robbins)

Maria Shirinkina/Vladimir Shklyarov
Alina Somova/Evgeny Ivanchenko
Yekaterina Kondaurova/Danila Korsuntsev


Divertissement I


Pas de deux from the ballet Le Papillon (Maria Taglioni)

Alina Somova/Alexander Sergeyev


Adagio fro the ballet Red Giselle (Boris Eifman)

Vera Arbuzova/Evgeny Ivanchenko


The Bluebird's pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty (Marius Petipa)

Svetlana Ivanova/Alexei Timofeyev


Pas de deux from the ballet Anna Karenina (Andre Prokovsky)

Yulia Makhalina/Andrei Yakolev


Pas de deux from the ballet Light (Maurice Bejart)

Kateryna Shalkina/Julien Favreau


Pas de deux from the ballet Le Corsaire (Marius Petipa)

Viktoria Teryoshkina/Andrei Yermakov



Divertissement II


Adagio from the ballet The Legend of Love (Yuri Grigorovich)

Alina Somova/Igor Kolb


Look at Me (Vera Arbuzova)

Vera Arbuzova/Andrei Kasianenko


Pas de deux from the ballet The Talisman (Marius Petipa)

Yekaterina Osmolkina/Ernest Latypov


Etude pour une Dame aux camelias (Solo) (Maurice Bejart)

Elisabet Ros


A Country Don Juan (Leonid Yakobson)

Viktoria Teryoshkina/Igor Kolb


Leda and the Swan (Roland Petit)

Olga Yesina/Alexander Sergeyev


Grand pas de deux (Christian Spuck)

Ulyana Lopatkina/Danila Korsuntsev


Finale from the ballet Symphony in C (George Balanchine)

Alina Somova/Alexander Sergeyev
Yekaterina Kondaurova/Yevgeny Ivanchenko
Olesya Novikova/Alexei Popov
Maria Shirinkina/Alexei Timofeyev


La Saboteur from the ballet La Fille mal gardee (Oleg Vinogradov)

Students from the 9th year Vaganova Academy class of Gennady Selyutsky.

Buddy thanks for typing that out (!!) The program was indeed amazing; to my mind this was the best night of the festival yet. I do think they could have shifted some of last night's variations to this Sunday night, as that selection is not as appealing. I fell in love with the Babochka/Butterfly/Papillion pas de deux, and Talisman with Osmolkina was stunning as well.... It is so refreshing when the theatre presents the more historical works that you can never see performed in the West!

Thanks so much for the thanks, Catherine. After such a wonderful evening I felt almost compelled to type out the program.

I definitely agree with you about Maria Taglioni's "Le Papillon" (Alina Somova/Alexander Sergeyev) and "The Talisman" (Yekaterina Osmolkina/Ernest Latypov), especially "Le Papillon", which I thought was absolutely charming !

Great to see Ekaterina Osmolkina again. She is such a beautiful dancer. Also great to see Svetlana Ivanova in a lead. And I enjoyed Olga Yesina very much, who I thought was one of the most lyrically graceful dancers of the evening.

Once again, the entire evening was fabulous.


Diana Vishneva

Tonight she had a fine evening. I especially enjoyed her in Martha Graham's "Labyrinth".

Ulyana Lopatkina

Her Dancing Was Magnificent !

As Usual.

Her moves, her timing, her positioning, her presence, her elegance....Everything....

Magnificent !

"Anna Karenina"

The Choreography and the Dancing by Everybody

Extremely Fine.

Another Exceptional Evening !


"Gala Concert Of World Ballet Stars"


Carmen Suite (Albert Alonso)

Diana Vishneva
Jose Manuel Carreno
Konstantin Zverev



Divertissement


Forgotten History (Emil Faski)

Irina Golub
Timur Askerov


Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux

Evgenia Obraztsova
Matthew Golding


Adagio from the ballet Swan Lake [White Swan Act II] (Lev Ivanov)

Oxana Skorik
Danila Korsuntsev


Pas de deux from the ballet Le Corsaire

Ekaterina Osmolkina
Kim Kimin


The Dying Swan

Ulyana Lopatkina


Pas de deux from the ballet Don Quixote

Viktoria Tereshkina
Vladimir Shklyarov
Elena Yevseyeva (variation)



Symphony In C

Alina Somova/Maxim Zyuzin
Yekaterina Kondaurova/Yevgeny Ivanchenko
Olesya Novikova/Filipp Styopin
Maria Shirinkina/Alexei Timofeyev



In my mind, Ulyana Lopatkina, Diana Vishneva and Oxsana Skorik were Outstanding !

I'd like to quickly mention several more names from Sunday's gala.

Viktoria Tereshkina

In the "Pas de deux from the ballet Don Quixote" she was beautiful, technically right on and Exciting !

Olesya Novikova

In George Balanchine's "Symphony In C" she really stood out as she sailed across the stage and, like Viktoria Tereshkina, gave her performance an aliveness and excitement that was very special.

Yekaterina Kondaurova

Also dancing "Symphony In C", she was once again goddess-like in her statuesque elegance and persona.

Kim Kimin

This young "Trainee", who danced the "Pas de deux from the ballet Le Corsaire" with Ekaterina Osmolkina, was aerially breathtaking, charismatic and a noteworthy statement of statuesque refinement.


Everyone at this gala did Beautifully !

Just a few comments as well - I also was glad to see Osmolkina cast again in a soloist role. Her port de bras were stunning in Talisman -- as if she had just stepped away from perfecting each finger along with Vaganova herself. Her partner Ernest Latypov had quite a bit of ballon to him. He is still very very young, fresh out of school, but shows much promise.

Ivanova in Bluebird was by far the most impressive Florine I have ever seen. It was beyond impeccable. She easily surpassed Timofeyev in virtuosity, and everything she did was delicate, each step into arabesque --in which she carved a perfect "V" shape in the air each time ...even her eyes danced. There were no missteps, no faltering, nothing amiss. Perfectly musical. Perfect smoothness. It was absolutely stunning. Most other Florine's I have seen tend to be less lyrical and more perky, but they don't have the same sense of seamlessness. I could go on, but you get the idea.

In terms of panache, I agree that Novikova stood out in Symphony in C, and Tereshkina in both Corsaire (with Ermakov) and later Don Q (with Shkylarov). One did wish though, that the Corsaire pas (evening in honor of Silutsky) did not have to be repeated with a different cast on Sunday night (Osmolkina and Kimin). There is such a vast choice of repertoire from which the company can select, I'm not sure why they needed to repeat some of the ballets. But that is a minor complaint. The evenings of divertissements (Thurs & Sun) were most enjoyable.

Lopatkina in Anna Karenina truly did justice to Ratmansky's work. I had seen all three casts when it debuted (Vishneva, Lopatkina, Kondaurova) and I was not disappointed to see it again this time. The male corps, especially in the Hippodrome section, are just stunning to watch, no matter what other critics may say, I think that section is genius.

My review of the festival will be in Dance Europe if anyone is interested.

Thanks for that report Catherine, I'm delighted to hear the news about Osmolkina. I saw her dance Talisman some years ago and thought her near perfect then. Even taking into account her 'baby break' she has seemed a bit side lined of late.

Hi Cassandra,
Yes, Osmolkina really did look in excellent form. I also gather she hasn't been cast a lot lately, but it certainly would not be due to her condition, as everything was lovely and in place. She's been back at least (if not over) a year now... I hope she's cast more frequently. But then I note casting in general is not the same as it once was and some of the dancers have said the same.

Catherine - do you know anything about the programme for the Mariinsky Festival this year, 2013? All the MT website says is that it opens with Vishneva/Shklyarov in Romeo and Juliet and runs until 10 March. Apparently there will be performances of some Forsythe and Lifar, but no other ballets are mentioned. I believe you are in contact with Yuri Fateyev - is it possible for you to ask him what the schedule of performance is for the Festival? Many people want to know this.

Also, Gergiev stated that Swan Lake was to be broadcast "live" on 14th February. There is no Swan Lake on the playbill for that date, but there are two Swan Lakes scheduled for 6th and 10th February - are these the ones that are in fact going to be filmed and do you know which ballerina is to be Odette/Odile? If you do not know, perhaps you could ask Fateyev? Thank you!

I heard that the 'live 3-D broadcast" of Swan Lake on Feb 14 will just be a re-jiggering of the existing 2006 Lopatkina/Korsuntsev film. James Cameron is simply applying his new technology to 'enhance' an existing 2-D film to 3-D, much like he recently did for his Titanic. So let's not not hold our breaths for a brand-new film.

Yes, it's a premiere....a premiere of the enhanced version of an old film! Buyer beware.

I heard this rumour too, and I do think it looks like you could be right, because if they were going to film it, surely they would have put up cast information by now, if not for anything else, at least in order to guarantee sold-out performances?

Hi Tiara and NN,
Last week, independent of these last posts, I had already put a request into the press office for the official festival schedule. I do know they're reviving two Forsythe works (Vertiginous and In the Middle), starting rehearsals Jan 14 (today) for those. But beyond that there's no official word yet, which is also why the website is not updated. I am sure it's the usual case of scrambling at the last minute to fill in the blanks -- hopefully we will have news soon.

And yes it sounds like the Swan Lake 3D is not a live/new performance but a shift of the previous recording into 3d. If it was a live one I think there'd be much more stir about it...and it would have sold out weeks ago locally if it was Lopatkina (even unfilmed).

Edited to add: Jan. 21st there *is* a sold out Swan Lake with Lopatkina and Korsuntsev. to my point